NORTH KOREAN ROCKET PUTS OBJECT INTO SPACE

Seoul/Tokyo, Feb 7: North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it has called a satellite, but its neighbours and Washington denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of UN sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test.

The US Strategic Command said it had detected a missile entering space, and South Korea's military said the rocket had put an object into orbit, quashing earlier media reports indicating the it might have failed in flight.

North Korea said the launch of its satellite Kwangmyongsong-4, named after late leader Kim Jong Il, was a “complete success” and that it was making a polar orbit of the earth every 94 minutes. The launch order was given by his son, leader Kim Jong Un, who is believed to be 33 years old.

North Korea's last longrange rocket launch, in 2012, put what it called a communications satellite into orbit, but no signal has ever been detected from it.

“Everything we have seen is consistent with a successful repeat of the 2012 (launch),” said US missile technology expert John Schilling.

“But it's still too early to tell for sure,” said Schilling, who is involved in the “38 North” North Korean monitoring project at Johns Hop- kins University.

The rocket was launched at around 9:30 a.m. Seoul time (0030 GMT) in a southward trajectory, as planned. Japan's Fuji Television Network showed a streak of light heading into the sky, taken from a camera at Chi- na's border with North Korea.

North Korea had notified UN agencies that it planned to launch a rocket carrying an Earth observation satellite, triggering opposition from gover nments that see it as a long-range missile test.

The United States was tracking the rocket launch and said it did not believe that it posed a threat to the United States or its allies, defence officials said.

Isolated North Korea had initially given a February 825 time frame for the launch but on Saturday changed that to Feb. 7-14, apparently taking advantage of clear weather on Sunday.

North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration called the launch “an epochal event in developing the country's science, technology, economy and defence capability by legitimately exercising the right to use space for independent and peaceful purposes”. Reuters

Reuters North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts as he watches a long range rocket launch in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang on Sunday